In prior art code division multiple access (CDMA) systems utilizing closed loop transmit diversity (CLTD), base stations having multiple antennas use an antenna weight coefficient vector to adjust the phase and/or relative amplitude of signals transmitted from each antenna. In such systems, a mobile station computes a set of optimized antenna weight coefficients that should be applied at the base station antennas to maximize the mobile received signal power. The mobile station then feeds back to the base station a set of antenna control bits for use by the base station in generating the optimized antenna weights.
However, one problem associated with CLTD schemes is that signaling errors on a feedback channel from the mobile station to the base station can lead to the use of the wrong antennas weights, which may have catastrophic results. For example, if a mobile station “blindly” processes (e.g., decode/demodulate) a transmission received from a base station on an assumption that the transmission was sent using antenna weights generated using the antenna control bits previously fed back to base station, feedback signaling errors may result in the mobile station demodulating/decoding the transmission using wrong antenna weights, which may lead to a very low demodulated signal-to-noise ratio, and a worthless, or invalid signal. This can lead to retransmissions, resulting in a reduction of bandwidth, and may even lead to data corruptions.